To what distance would you go for your one true love?In a future filled with a boundless potential for interstellar peace and prosperity, Mikako joins a research team to explore the recent contact between humans and alien races. She ventures out into space, leaving behind Noboru, the one young man she loves. As she travels deeper into this new frontier, her only connection with her boyfriend is through cell-phone text messages. But the years pass, and Mikako barely ages in the timelessness of space--while Noboru grows older and considers moving on with his life.

In this timeless romance between star-crossed lovers in the most tragic of settings, there are some places man may not be ready to go.

If space technology such as this is actually possible, I'm curious to know why someone travelling at the speed of light would not age while simultaneously earth ages. It sounds like a horrifying experience if this ever becomes real.

I am still crying, a half an hour after reading this. The story is so poignant. It grabs your heart with bare hands and crushes it with its melancholy longing. I found the development of the characters to be wonderfully slow and realistic. Their emotions come out beautifully during the manga's length. I would have loved to see a longer version of this manga. It would have amplified the experience. But, I am glad that it exists at all. The world would have been a sadder place without this masterpiece(at least for me).

I didn't know that there was an OVA which came before this. Will certainly see it.

asdfghj. I saw this manga suggested on a website, yet I ignore this one for a while,da fudge. It's really worth reading for..it's dramatic and I am satisfied with the outcome.The fact that they both live on the same atmosphere is enough to make their hearts and hopes contained and connected.

Oh my goodness, I've been looking for this manga for ten years (wow, I'm old). I don't remember the characters' names, but I do remember how much I adored the plot, the characters, and the themes of the manga. I need to reiterate: This manga stuck with me for ten years. It is phenomenal, and it makes a really lasting impact. Read it.

i remember hearing a whole bunch of good stuff about the movie, but when i finally got to watch it, i was left a bit underwhelmed. i didn't feel the characters were constructed that great in the movie and the drama felt forced and laid on too thickly.

i wanted to give this manga a try, though, since i love sahara mizu's works. i ended up enjoying this much more than the movie since we get to see more of the characters and have more insight into their personalities and motivations. art is also gorgeous, as usual.

the soft art conjure a wistful image of their world adding on the overall impression of the story. the plot goes slowly with multiple flashback with the pacing very appropriate to the tone. though the characters are just 2 dimensional, the dimension that we see is enough where fleshing out more will be unnecessary.

One of the first animes I came contact with (my dad always watched it when I was little and I always remember glimpses from memory). It took me 10 years since my first encounter with this to actually wathc the whole of it. One of the mecha stories that I managed to go through and actually cry at the end. The music and everythign was just soo...anyway, the manga's ending was a bit different and showed less tragedy than the anime, and gave the reader more hope than the watchers.

Spoiler (mouse over to view)

the manga ends suggesting that Noboru is going to save Mikako(stuck somewhere in space) while the anime made it seem that Mikako has died entirely. Personally, I liked the anime's ending better because the manga's loong story was cramped into a short one shot and even the ending was not that good.

Why is this sad? Some people complain about the ending being ambiguous, but its pretty clear what happened and what's going to happen. Obviously don't read this if you're not into very "heavy" atmosphere stories...

Spoiler (highlight to view)

Noboru is about to go on the rescue mission to save Mikako and since he will be in space he won't really age either. The expected outcome is that the rescue is a success and they reach the mothership thing, so it'll be a 25 year old Noboru and a 16-17 year old Mikako. That is if the Aliens don't come back and kill off the mothership, but from what the ending text reads, the intended "after" story would be the one I just described.

that was me the entire time maybe it was because i was already reading a sad manga before i started reading this but whatever the caused i cried every chapter and my girlfriend thought there was something wrong with me. This is probably the best romance manga i;ve ever read and probably will stay the best

Like the movie, the Manga does not fail to disappoint. In fact, I like how the Manga fleshes out the characters much more than the movie does. Reading this, I came to understand more about the central characters and how they deal with their respective lives out in space and on Earth. Sahara Mizu's artwork is simply amazing and perfectly suits this bittersweet and melancholic love story of star-crossed lovers.My only problem was...

Spoiler (highlight to view)

The cliffhanger at the end of the story that--even though it gave the two lovers hope--left a somewhat unsatisfied feeling in the "happy-ending-love-story" side of me. However, I feel that it is a sort of ending that leaves (if not forces) to you ponder the the themes of the story and the story itself.

I would prefer this over the movie but since it came after, I would recommend watching the movie first before reading this. However, if you've read this already then you should still give the movie a try. A great masterpiece created by a jobless man and his wife on his Macintosh.